Florida basketball emerged victoriously from its Saturday home matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs, but an ugly final 10 minutes of regulation made it much closer than it needed to be. Alas, the Gators still managed to earn their fourth SEC win with a 102-98 triumph in overtime.
In ESPN’s latest Basketball Power Index update following the victory, Todd Golden’s team actually fell a spot from our last update to No. 31 overall, now sitting between the No. 30 St. John’s Red Storm and No. 32 Oklahoma Sooners.
Florida’s BPI rating — a measurement of a team’s true strength moving forward — remained at 10.5 points. The offensive BPI moved up 0.5 points to 7.8 while the defensive BPI fell 0.5 points to 2.6.
The win-loss projection slightly improved to 20.1-10.9, with an also slightly better 10.1-7.9 prediction for the conference schedule. ESPN gives Florida less than an improved but still distant 0.4% chance to win the Southeastern Conference while the remaining strength of schedule ranks at No. 32.
Florida next travels to Lexington to take on the Kentucky Wildcats in a rematch of the SEC opening loss for the Gators on Wednesday, Jan. 31. Tipoff is slated for 8 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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